Parent-trigger opponents plead not guilty to vandalizing Adelanto school

Chrissy Guzman and Lori Yuan exit a Victorville courtroom Monday morning after pleading not guilty to vandalizing an Adelanto classroom. The school was days away from being turned over to a charter school operator under California’s parent-trigger law.

VICTORVILLE >> Two Adelanto mothers bitterly opposed to their elementary school being handed over to a charter school operator last summer under the state’s parent-trigger law pleaded not guilty to vandalizing a classroom days before the handoff was set to take place.

Chrissy Guzman and Lori Marie Yuan were charged on Nov. 27 with doing more than $400 of damage with ketchup, mustard and paint to a Desert Trails Elementary School classroom either on or about June 26.

On Monday morning, they appeared before Judge Miriam L. Morton in Victorville Superior Court, where they both entered their pleas.

Yuan is represented by Riverside-based attorney Philip C. Greenberg, while Guzman told Morton that she will obtain an attorney before her next court appearance.

Desert Trails was the first successful use of California’s 2010 parent-trigger law, which allows parents who gather signatures from more than 50 percent of a failing school’s parents to invoke the penalties in the federal No Child Left Behind law, including the ability to hand it over to a charter school operator.

The school had been in trouble for years academically: Desert Trails received a 699 Academic Performance Index score in 2012, 30 points below the district average, and 101 points below the state’s goal of 800 API for all schools. (The score is based on the results of multiple statewide tests, and scores range from 200 to 1,000.) Three-quarters of the Desert Trails students were unable to read or write at grade level, according to state test scores.

In 2011, parents in the Desert Trails Parent Union — aided by Parent Revolution, the nonprofit that helped pass the 2010 parent-trigger law three years ago — began circulating petitions, attempting to wrest control of Desert Trails away from the Adelanto Elementary School District.

The petitions were turned in to the district in January 2012, setting off a long legal battle as the law was put to the test. Members of the DTPU ultimately decided to turn the school over to Debra Tarver, who operates LaVerne Preparatory Academy in nearby Hesperia.